Let's Play "What's My Tomato?"

"Enter, Mystery Tomato, and sign in, please."

When we did the tomato grafting this Spring, the results were not quite as successful as we had hoped they would be; only one of the ten grafted plants survived.  See:  http://plantagarden-itllgrowonyou.blogspot.com/2016/04/not-quite-as-successful-as-we-hoped.html.

The one tomato plant that did survive was supposed to be a Rose de Berne on Estamino root stock.
We were a little surprised when the surviving plant put on a huge growth spurt and began rambling all over that end of the raised bed.  It produced very large yellow flowers that attracted the attention of an industrious bumble bee and of the California Towhees, but as time went on, not much in the way of tomatoes appeared.

Grafted Plant on the Left

When tomatoes did begin to appear, they were small, clustered and yellow.  We kept waiting for them to ripen, but they stayed yellow.  When they began dropping off the vine, Cindy started picking them and determined that they were actually ripe.  They tasted all right, but were just small and yellow.

Mystery Tomatoes

The Rose de Berne tomato is described as a dark pink tomato weighing between 6 to 8 ounces with good, sweet flavor.  The plant right next to the mystery plant is from the same lot of seeds labeled "Rose de Berne" and appears to be an actual Rose de Berne plant and is certainly producing the big round dark pink tomatoes we expect from that plant.

Actual Rose de Berne Tomato

So then what is the mystery plant and how did we end up with it?  Was it a bad seed?  Did the seeds get mixed up?  I'm not buying the bad seed explanation because the mystery tomato produces clusters of small tomatoes, while the Rose de Berne produces a single tomato on a stem, not a clump.

Cindy doesn't remember ever ordering any seeds for tomato plants that produce small yellow tomatoes, although it's possible that the seeds got mixed up by the grower Cindy bought the seeds from.

Two possibilities are the Galena's tomato  http://www.tomatogrowers.com/GALINAS/productinfo/5882/ and the Garden Peach  http://www.tomatogrowers.com/GARDEN-PEACH/productinfo/5324/.

The yellow tomatoes do have a faint bit of fuzz on them like the Garden Peach, but not what I would call "abundant clusters" of fruit.

It may just remain a mystery.

The Nest Itself

We took the House Finch nest down from the beam over our front porch Friday morning.  The last two fledgling birds flew off on Monday morning, so there was no reason for the nest itself to stay up there; if these same parents or other finches decide to have a nest there, they will construct a new one.

Good thing, too--the growing baby birds don't wear diapers, so the inside of the nest is pretty well coated with bird poop by the time they fly off.

I was curious about the construction of the nest, so I told Cindy I wanted a picture of it before it went into the trash.

House Finch Nest

This shot is of the underside of the nest.  It looks like the birds used twigs and Asparagus Fern to tie the nest together and probably to anchor it to the plastic bird spikes on the beam, and used dead leaves as cushioning for the eggs and nestlings.

We were never quite sure exactly how many eggs and birds were in the nest; we didn't want to disturb the birds any more than was necessary and even when Cindy climbed up to replace the nestling that had fallen out she did it so quickly that she didn't stop to count the number of chicks in the nest.  In any case, the nest was big enough to accommodate them and kept them safe until they could fly.

Empty Nest

The last two fledgling House Finches flew off from the nest this morning.  One or two others had left a day or two ago, but we didn't think these two were quite ready to leave the nest yet.  Although the larger one appeared to have pretty good feathers and was stretching its wings, the smaller bird didn't really look quite ready.  http://plantagarden-itllgrowonyou.blogspot.com/2016/05/location-location-location.html

They both took off anyway when we stepped out onto the porch this morning to say goodbye to a friend who had been visiting.  The larger chick flew across the driveway into the neighbors' shrubbery, but the smaller one hadn't quite got that flying thing down yet and only flew as far as the driveway, where it sat looking a bit dazed for a few minutes.  Then it sort of hopped and flew under our rose bushes and then into the pomegranate container on our front porch.  Cindy later saw it fluttering off toward the neighbors on the other side.  Since the parent birds continue to protect and feed their chicks for a few days after they leave the nest, we're hoping that they will be able to reconnect with it and continue to feed it.

Last week one of the chicks fell out of the nest and landed in our driveway.  Since the chick at that point was still in the nestling stage, mostly covered with down and only a few true feathers, we followed the advice of the Audubon Society and the National Wildlife Federation, dragged the ladder out and returned the chick to the nest.  Because birds have a poor sense of smell, returning a nestling bird won't discourage the parents from continuing to feed it.

However, both organizations advise against returning a fledgling bird, with fully formed feathers, to the nest since they're just beginning to learn to fly at that stage and need to spend some time on the ground practicing their flying skills.

We're feeling bad that we accidentally scared the fledglings out of the nest today, but Project Wildlife says the parents will continue to search for their babies and even resume feeding them if they've been gone a day or two, so we'll continue to hope that all the chicks will be all right.

Now that they've gone, we'll be able sit on our front porch again.

Of Course...

Of course, we're not the only ones around here who love blueberries.  Most of our blueberry bushes are protected by Cindy's anti-varmint panels from attack from the ground and by bird netting from depredations by marauding California Towhees, who like a little fruit with their bird seed.

The three bushes in pots in front of the garage, on the other hand, have no protection.  I was looking out the window the other day and saw the leaves of one of those bushes being agitated as if by the wind, but there was no wind blowing.

And then I noticed that Big Mama, the matriarch of the California Ground Squirrel population, seems to have produced her annual brood serially this year instead of all at once as she usually does.

That means that she now has some adolescent juvenile delinquents as well as a couple of very cute baby squirrels just out of the den, and she's teaching all of them where the free bird seed buffet is located.

Big Mama and Brood

Unfortunately, it also means that the juveniles have started ranging a bit further out and have discovered....Blueberries!

Fortunately, we collected most of the blueberries from the the garage bushes before the squirrels finally stripped them, and we also had a very good yield from the bushes in the protected area, too.

"I Found My Thrill....On Blueberry Hill..."

It's Blueberry Season!

We now have our original four blueberry bushes and three more Cindy got from her friend Janet when she moved.  All of the bushes have been flowering and producing berries for months, and now the berries are ripening.

Some varieties of blueberry require more "chill hours" than our San Diego climate has, but there are several varieties that do very well here.

Good thing we love blueberries.

Location, Location, Location

Last week we noticed a pair of House Finches inspecting the beam over our front porch.  They flew on and off of it for several days, first at one end of the beam, then at the other.

We were rather hoping they wouldn't decide to build a nest there, but they ultimately did build one at the far end of the beam.

On The Nest

 We've had birds nest on that beam before, and to some extent it's a good choice for them; it's easily accessible, it's protected from the elements, it's concealed from the view of predators and the plastic spikes we've installed on top of the beam provide some real stability for the nest.  So for those reasons it's a good choice of location.

However, we put the spikes up there to discourage birds from nesting there several years ago after  Mourning Doves had nested there several times and proved themselves to be terrible bird parents.  They build flimsy nests  consisting of a few twigs thrown together on the beam and one time one of the parent doves turned around and swept its fledgling right off the beam onto the porch below.  We scooped that one up and made an emergency run to Project Wildlife, the wildlife rehabilitation center, because it looked to us like the chick had a broken leg.  So we put up the plastic spikes to discourage nesting.

That effort has been moderately successful; the Mourning Doves have stayed away, but we have had House Finches nest there occasionally since we put up the spikes.  They are much better bird parents and build substantial nests, carefully weaving the nesting materials around the plastic spikes to give it stability.  The problem is that they tend to be shy of humans and Mama bird will fly off the nest whenever we go in or out the front door.  They will also stay away from the nest if we decide to sit on our front porch in the evening.  Since we don't want to be responsible for the eggs not hatching, we tend to avoid using the front door or sitting on the porch.  They have an incubation period of 13 to 14 days and then about another week of feeding the chicks when they hatch.

It's fun to watch the chicks develop into fledglings and begin to try their wings, but it's a pain in the tush to avoid the front door for that long.  We'll do it, because we don't want to be bad neighbors, but we really hope they'll find a different location in the future.

Loquats

We were looking at a tree in the neighbors' back yard the other day and wondering what the fruit hanging all over it was.

Loquats

Turned out it's a Loquat tree.  And Loquats are producing fruit right now--lots of fruit.  A friend who  has more Loquats than she can use gave Cindy some, so she needed to find a way to use them.

Here's the recipe Cindy came up with for Loquat Fried Rice:

Loquat Fried Rice
4 servings

Ingredients:
3 Tbsp. low-sodium soy sauce or low-sodium tamarin
1 Tbsp. sesame oil
1/4 to 1/2 tsp ginger powder
1/4 tsp. white pepper
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 clove minced garlic
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1 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup frozen corn
1/2 cup frozen peas
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3 cups cold, pre-cooked brown or white rice
2 cups diced loquats
3/4 cup roasted, unsalted cashews
2 green onions, sliced

Directions:

1.  In a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger powder, white pepper, olive oil and garlic.  Set aside or refrigerate until ready to use.
2.  Heat 1 Tbsp. olive oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium high heat.  Add onion to the skillet and cook, stirring often, until onions have become translucent, about 3 to 4 minutes.  Stir in corn and peas.  Stirring constantly, cook until vegetables are tender, about 3 minutes.  Stir in rice, loquats, cashews, green onions and soy sauce mixture.  Cook, stirring constantly, until heated through.  Serve immediately.